Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son

by Kevin Cook

Playing Through: Modern Golf's Most Iconic Players and Moments

by Jim Moriarty

His Ownself: A Semi-Memoir (Anchor Sports)

by Dan Jenkins

The Captain Myth: The Ryder Cup and Sport's Great Leadership Delusion

by Richard Gillis

The Ryder Cup: Golf's Grandest Event – A Complete History

by Martin Davis

Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf

by Kevin Robbins

Grounds for Golf: The History and Fundamentals of Golf Course Design

by Geoff Shackelford

The Art of Golf Design

by Michael Miller, Geoff Shackelford

The Future of Golf: How Golf Lost Its Way and How to Get It Back

by Geoff Shackelford

Lines of Charm: Brilliant and Irreverent Quotes, Notes, and Anecdotes from Golf's Golden Age Architects

Sports Media Group

Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point Club

by Geoff Shackelford

The Golden Age of Golf Design

by Geoff Shackelford

Masters of the Links: Essays on the Art of Golf and Course Design

Sleeping Bear Press

The Good Doctor Returns: A Novel

by Geoff Shackelford

The Captain: George C. Thomas Jr. and His Golf Architecture

by Geoff Shackelford

Today, many are trying to obtain a temporary advantage by buying the latest far-flying ball on the market. It is often suggested that we have already got to the limit of flight of a golf ball. I do not believe it, as there is no limit to science. ALISTER MACKENZIE

Kelley puts the price at "around $15 million" and features this statement from Milstein:

“We look foward to continuing Golf Magazine’s long history of editorial excellence, both in its print edition and through its Web site and other offerings,” said Milstein, who is the chairman and chief executive of New York Private Bank and Trust, which operates Emigrant Bank and its private equity arm, Emigrant Capital.

There is also this good news for some of my golf writing colleagues:

Editor-in-Chief David DeNunzio and the entire staff are expected to be retained by the new owners

The deal ends rumors of a collapse in negotiations and any immediate hopes of Milstein purchasing another golf publication. Milstein owns several golf companies and while his plans are unclear, the Golf.com URL and opportunity to cross-promote his various brands appears to be the primary reason for purchasing Golf Magazine.

In other Milstein news, his investment in Jack Nicklaus will continue and change with the Golden Bear stepping away from day-to-day Nicklaus Companies commitments.

For Immediate Release:

A strategy that was born a little more than 10 years ago when Jack Nicklaus brought on Howard Milstein as a partner to grow the business, institutionalize the Nicklaus and Golden Bear brands, and create a transition to the future of one of the golf industry’s most enduring and recognizable companies has reached a juncture where Jack Nicklaus has decided to step away from the day-to-day commitments of the Nicklaus Companies and re-prioritize his time and focus.

The foundations of the Nicklaus Companies were created almost 50 years ago, with the mission to promote the game of golf, preserve its great traditions and grow the game. Over those decades, Nicklaus Companies and its predecessors have been committed to efforts to enhance the golf experience, and to bring to the national and international consumer, golf-related businesses and services that mirror the high standards established in the career and life of Jack Nicklaus. Products and services include golf-course design, development of golf and real estate communities, and the marketing and licensing of golf products and services. Earlier this year, the National Golf Foundation recognized the Nicklaus Companies as one of the Top-100 Businesses in Golf.

Jack Nicklaus is committed to ensuring that the company remains among the industry’s most respected and successful.

“I have spent my life building the Nicklaus Companies, and there has come a time in my life when I need to reduce my level of involvement and pursue many other things I am very interested in, such as charity work—specifically efforts focused on children’s healthcare—supporting the industry’s initiatives to grow this great game, and being involved in many other things outside of my involvement in the Nicklaus Companies,” Jack Nicklaus said.

“I am 78 years old, and while my health is excellent, and I have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm, it became apparent by last fall that it was time for me to spend more time on these other activities. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, and there is no reason for me to do so, because I will continue to support the Nicklaus Companies and I want the company to be successful. However, my life has changed and I wish to support my wife, as well as other family members, in any endeavor they are involved. I have said many times that Barbara spent much of her life supporting me and my career, and for the last few years, I have tried to dedicate my time and energies to supporting her and what she is involved in. I am enjoying that aspect and want to continue to devote my time to her and these other life-changing efforts, and to enjoy our lives together. I would like to thank Howard. He has enabled me to monetize what I have built in this company, take care of my family, and allowed me the time to focus on these other priorities in my life.”

In 2004, a year before Jack played his final competitive round in a major championship, the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation (nchcf.org) was founded. Since then, the Foundation has raised more than $83 million for pediatric care programs in South Florida and beyond. In 2015, world-renowned Miami Children’s Hospital was renamed Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. In November 2017, the entire Miami Children’s Health System was rebranded to Nicklaus Children’s, including 14 outpatient facilities up the Southeast Florida coast and west to Naples.

In 2007, Jack Nicklaus partnered with Howard Milstein to help further the growth of the company and to realize the full potential of the brands and branded businesses. Howard Milstein is Chairman of New York Private Bank & Trust, the country’s largest family owned and operated bank.

Nicklaus-branded products have been marketed worldwide since 1962. The Jack Nicklaus and Golden Bear-branded lifestyle collection of products includes: golf academies; ice cream; restaurants; beverages; beverageware; wine; home appliances; apparel; footwear; and golf equipment. Many of these have been introduced in the last decade, as the focus was placed on building the brand.

Meanwhile, Nicklaus Design continues to be recognized as the world leader in golf course design, with 415 courses open for play in 45 countries and 39 U.S states. Jack Nicklaus has designed, co-designed or re-designed over 300 courses around the globe, more than 100 of which have been ranked in various national or international Top-100 lists. He will continue to support the golf course design projects currently under development.

Jack Nicklaus will remain as Co-Chairman of the Nicklaus Companies, while Milstein will assume the role of Executive Chairman. The Nicklaus Family will continue to be the majority owner of the Company, with Emigrant/Milstein being a significant investor, and Jack Nicklaus II and Gary Nicklaus continue to serve as members of the Board. In addition, Jack Nicklaus II, who has active golf course design projects all over the world, including Malaysia and Vietnam, remains President of Nicklaus Design.

“Jack Nicklaus has basically spent a lifetime building a successful company and brand that is viewed as the strongest in golf, and we embrace the opportunity and responsibility to make certain this great brand—one that represents excellence—continues to grow in global prominence,” Milstein said. “Jack has also built a company with experienced, talented, innovative and hard-working people, and those colleagues are as much a part of his legacy as the company itself. From CEO John Reese to the management team and the entire staff at the Nicklaus Companies, we have enormous confidence in their ability and are positioned so that the next generation of the Nicklaus Companies will build on the strength Jack and his family created, and that Jack will remain very proud of the legacy he has established. Jack will ensure that the company and the people behind it continue the success enjoyed to date, and he will be a part of it for many years to come.”

Milstein, whose passion for the game of golf has led him to acquire in recent years a number of golf-related businesses—such as True Spec, GolfLogix, Miura, and, just this week, GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com—applauded Jack Nicklaus’ commitment to the game and to his many efforts aimed at giving back to the game.

“Everywhere you turn, Jack Nicklaus has left his imprint on the game of golf,” Milstein added. “About 50 years ago, he was instrumental in creating the enormously successful PGA TOUR we know and enjoy today. In 1976, he created the Memorial Tournament—his gift to Central Ohio that has become one of golf’s most prestigious events. He has been a national co-chair and Trustee of The First Tee, and he and the company have become a Trustee of the PGA of America’s charitable arm, PGA REACH. Jack has certainly given far more back to the game than it has given him, and I know he will continue to impact the game and charity on a daily basis. I am proud to call him a partner.

As the world's best superintendents and their teams converge on San Antonio for this week's Golf Industry Show, one product many are told they need: bunker liners.

These expensive products, which follow the unsuccessful effort of previous products to prevent sand contamination, are sadly expected now for courses that absolutely should be spending on other products or personnel. A hazard is a hazard!

In 2017, two high profile incidents involving Branden GraceandCharley Hoffmaninvolved the players struggling to take a stance, they claimed because of the liners. Both, coincidentally, faced "fried egg" lies. Both were granted relief to the consternation of millions.

Purported to be in the Monterey Peninsula for the AT&T Leadership Conference coinciding with the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, former president Barack Obama brought the sticks along. Just in case the Cypress Point invite comes. Or? Could he be a last minute pro-am fill-in?

Strokes gained creator and stat guru Mark Brodie has crunched numbers as far back as possible and concluded that, at least based on Strokes Gained, the elite player of 1996 to 2004 was a lot older than today's top players.

From 1987 until 1996, the average age of the top 100 players in total strokes gained steadily rose from 32.3 years to 36.5 years. In that decade-long stretch, Watson and contemporaries like Greg Norman, Tom Kite and Hale Irwin were playing competitively into their late forties. The average age of the top 100 players remained steady between '96 and '04.

Since '04, Broadie finds that the average age of the top 100 strokes gained players "plummeted from 36.5 to 33.0 years."

The first year Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship--the CPRACC as it'll become known in time--will be played opposite the WGC Dell Match Play in late March.

Given that this is a former Web.com Tour event looking for attention, it seems like a wise move. I've love to hear griping, but hopefully players have learned that (A) celebrity sponsor invites have been happening for almost a century, (B) opposite field events need all the the help they can get, and (C) the last players in most opposite field events are generally coming from a little known exempt status category called Hasn't Been Relevant In Years.

As with Steph Curry playing in last August's Web.com Tour's Bay Area event, golf should be ecstatic to have such a well-liked pro athlete loving the game, and playing it a high level.

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic – Tony Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current lead analyst for the NFL ON CBS, will compete in the PGA TOUR’s Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship (March 19-25, 2018) in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic as a sponsor exemption. The Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship is a first-year PGA TOUR event in 2018, previously having a two-year run as a Web.com Tour event.

Playing as an amateur participant with professional partner Will Zalatoris in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this week, Romo revealed during a press conference Wednesday that he has received a sponsor exemption to the new PGA TOUR event, which carries a purse of $3 million with four-round television coverage broadcast on Golf Channel. Romo will compete as an amateur in the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship.

“As a professional athlete, the love and thrill of competition never entirely leaves you,” said Romo. “Outside of my family and football, golf is one of my greatest passions. So, playing and competing in a PGA TOUR event is a dream come true. I am grateful to the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship for giving me an incredible opportunity to test my skills against some of the best on TOUR.”

The Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship will be the first official PGA TOUR event in which Romo will compete as an individual against PGA TOUR professionals in the same competition.

Romo, who carries a +0.3 handicap at Dallas National Golf Club, has attempted to qualify for the U.S. Open three times. In 2010, Romo advanced to the sectional stage of qualifying for the national championship, but was forced to withdraw due to his practice schedule with the Cowboys. Last year he participated in the prestigious Western Amateur, where he was unable to advance to match play. Also in 2017, Romo finished T16 in the 89-player celebrity field at the American Century Championship, marking his return to the event in which he had played six consecutive years (2007-12), finishing runner-up three times in a row (2009-11).

“As a first-year PGA TOUR event, we are elated to have Tony Romo accept our offer to play in the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship,” said Grupo Puntacana Founder and Chairman Frank Rainieri. “Tony Romo rose to an elite level in professional football, and then quickly became a popular and well-regarded broadcaster for CBS when he retired. He has a history of achieving success in the face of major challenges. And now he’s going to face a new one, the rare opportunity to compete as an amateur against the world’s best golfers. We are very excited to see how this plays out.”

Romo, 37, signed as an undrafted free agent with the Cowboys in 2003 after playing collegiately at Eastern Illinois University. Beginning his career as a holder, Romo became the Cowboys' starting quarterback during the 2006 season. Serving as the team's primary starter from 2006 to 2015, he guided the Cowboys to four postseason appearances and was named to the Pro Bowl four times. Romo retired after the 2016 season and immediately was hired by CBS Sports to become the lead analyst for the NFL ON CBS, teaming with Jim Nantz in the broadcast booth.

Romo holds several Cowboys team records, including passing touchdowns, passing yards, most games with at least 300 passing yards and games with three or more touchdown passes.

A depressing new report on even the slightest change in sea levels suggests most of the world's links are imperiled, with some already on the cusp of major damage in a perfect storm scenario.

From an unbylined BBC report on The Climate Coalition issuing a warning to golf, football and cricket as the sports to be hardest hit, with links courses the most endangered.

The Open is the only one of golf's majors played in the UK and is hosted on links courses, including - as well at St Andrews and Royal Troon - Royal Birkdale, Hoylake, Royal Lytham & St Annes, Muirfield, Sandwich, Turnberry, Portrush and 2018 venue Carnoustie.

It adds that "more than 450 years of golfing history" at Montrose, one of the five oldest courses in the world, is at risk of being washed away by rising seas and coastal erosion linked to climate change.

Research published by Dundee University in 2016 showed the North Sea has crept 70 metres towards Montrose within the past 30 years.

Chris Curnin, director at Montrose Golf Links, said: "As the sea rises and the coast falls away, we're left with nowhere to go. Climate change is often seen as tomorrow's problem - but it's already eating away at our course.

"In a perfect storm we could lose 5-10 metres over just a couple of days and that could happen at pretty much any point."

Amazing what a little tinkering with formats and emphasizing course design can do!

Not long ago the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was known for six hour rounds, has-been pros in the field and never-was "celebrities" getting too much air time. With the world's top-3 playing this year and plenty of celebrity intrigue to offset the corporate crowd--Golfweekposted the full field list here--Der Bingle's baby is back.

But as Ron Kroichick noted for MorningRead.com, the AT&T matters again as as stalwart event thanks largely to some key changes in format and rota.

Or put another way: Pebble matters again.

AT&T officials couldn’t do much about the weather, but in 2010 they shrewdly swapped Poppy Hills (unpopular among Tour pros) for Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course. They also trimmed the field from 180 pros and amateurs to 156 of each, and made a conscious effort to land better amateur golfers.

While athletes were always part of the event, their rise in celebrity status and the inclusion of more pro jocks seems to have given the event a boost. Let's face it, for a lot of PGA Tour golfers the chance to hang out with a world class athlete for three rounds is more interesting than getting paired with a corporate dude.

Unless said corporate dude has a jet and a third home on the Peninsula with a separate guest entrance.

Maybe it’s fitting Doral doesn’t host a PGA Tour event anymore. The old adage that the year in golf doesn’t begin until Doral wouldn’t hold up any longer. Today’s stars aren’t using the West Coast swing to get warm in a run up to the Masters. They hit the year hot with Johnson, Rahm and Jason Day among the big names getting on the board with victories in January.

The intensity only builds this week with Spieth looking to rebound from a missed cut in Phoenix last week. He is defending the title he won last year. It also builds with McIlroy making his first PGA Tour start of the year after coming off second- and third-place finishes on the European Tour last month.

Over at CBSSports.com, Kyle Porternotes the seemingly improved week-to-week quality of the tour. While I'll remind him of this column in mid to late May, the point should be made that the fall wraparound schedule has not harmed the West Coast Swing as folks like me feared. Perhaps it's the mediocre quality of those events and lack of eyeballs trained on them, but the West Coast still feels like the tour's bread-and-butter season for big venues, big fields and lots of eyeballs. As it and the Florida season should be given a quick study of history.

Also not to be discounted: the subtle but important inclusion of stars who don't play 25 events the previous year now being forced to play events haven't been to in at least four years. That subtle PGA Tour rule could, for instance, explain Rory McIlroy's appearance this week. Or, at the very least, helped get him to Pebble Beach when making out a schedule in search of adding an event due to the rule.

While some may be confused by the format, I still feel like there is something curious and worth watching about this second-year event. Perhaps the lack of ease in explainin the format to a regular fan is the main issue, though really this is a just a normal golf tournament until a Sunday shootout. From there it's match play, with byes given to the stroke play leaders.

Anyway, in support of fresh formats, I give you the European Tour'sFAQ page and infographic to explain the event start Wednesday evening on Golf Channel:

Q: What’s the bottom line?A: - 156 players start for three rounds of strokeplay- A standard cut to the leading 65 pros (and ties) will be made after 36 holes- A further cut after 54 will reduce the field to 24 players for a final day of match play action- If there are any ties for 24th position, a sudden-death play-off on the 18th will determine the qualifiers- Sunday will bring five rounds of six-hole match play battles – Super 6- The top eight players after 54 holes will receive a bye into the second match play round- Any ties for the top eight will be decided by a score count back based on the last 18, 9, 6, 3 and 1 holes- In Super 6, any results not determined after six holes of match play will be decided by playing a shootout hole- The shootout hole is a purpose-built par three using the 18th green, but played from a new tee box positioned around 90 yards from the green on the right of the 18th fairway.- Only one man will be left standing